RECRUITMENT FOR ASSAM, 363 
eight districts of Assam in which the tea plantations lie. It is impor- 
tant to observe that the legislative restrictions which are imposed on 
recruitment for work in the districts in question have no counterpart 
elsewhere in India. Migration, as we have indicated, is a feature of 
Indian industrial labour everywhere. Workers may be assisted to 
emigrate to any part of India; even the employers in the tea areas 
of North Bengal adjoining Assam are subject to no hampering enact- 
ments, although they draw labour from areas where the Assam employer 
also recruits. The restrictions imposed on the movement of labour 
to these eight districts known as the labour-districts, are governed 
by Act VI of 1901 as amended from time to time. The recruiting areas 
to which this Act applies are Madras, Bengal, the United Provinces, 
Bihar and Orissa, the Central Provinces and Assam itself. The 
local Governments of these provinces, by means of notification, can 
prohibit recruitment, either absolutely or otherwise than in accordance 
with such of the provisions of the Act as may be specified in the notifi- 
cation. The question of the repeal of the Act and of the enactment 
of a simpler measure in its place has been for some time under the 
consideration of the Government of India, and we were supplied with 
copies ‘of the correspondence with local Governments on the subject. 
We are in complete agreement with the view expressed by the Govern- 
ment of India that « the principle of complete prohibition of recruit- 
ment in particular areas” is no longer defensible. If it is feared that 
grave abuses will arise, it should suffice to vest local Governments 
with adequate powers of control over recruitment. But there appears 
to be no justification for the exercise of the power which is now con- 
ferred by Section 3 of the Act to prohibit recruitment altogether in 
particular localities. This power has been exercised in respect of five 
divisions and two districts of the United Provinces, and we find that the 
prohibition has not been withdrawn, in spite of the strong recommenda- 
tion to this effect made by the Royal Commission on Agriculture, 
with which we are in complete agreement. We recommend that the 
power to prohibit recruitment; should be withdrawn immediately, and that 
in future no barrier should be set up to prevent the normal play of social 
and economic forces in attracting labour from one part of Indla to 
another 
Present Procedure. 
Before we deal in detail with the provisions of Act VI of 1901, 
and the question of its revision, it would be convenient to describe 
briefly the working of the present system of recruitment. Under the 
Act the only recognised method of recruitment is through the agency 
of garden sardars. The manager of a tea garden in Assam appoints as 
a sardar a worker who is willing to return to his home to bring up other 
members of his family or fresh recruits and gives him a sardar’s certi- 
ficate on which is shown the area in which he may recruit labour for 
the garden and the local agent to whom he is accredited. The certifi- 
cate is countersigned by the magistrate of the district in which the 
garden is situated and is kept by the sardar in a tin cover which is